Is GCL (Gnu Common Lisp, was Kyoto CL, I think) a decent
CL implementation? I'm just getting Linux going on my system,
and I want a decent CL development system, preferably without
shelling out cash for a professional system. :-)
I'm interested in integration with C routines (and Xlib) where possible,
and at least passable exectution speed/size. Thanks.
----------------------------------------
····@charybdis.com
There's no one left to finger
No one here to blame
In article <······················@news.giganews.com>,
"Dan Higdon" <····@charybdis.com> writes:
> Is GCL (Gnu Common Lisp, was Kyoto CL, I think) a decent
> CL implementation? I'm just getting Linux going on my system,
> and I want a decent CL development system, preferably without
> shelling out cash for a professional system. :-)
In my opinion, NO! Get CMUCL from cons.org for a PD
version or get Franz's ACL for Linux from them for
free. (www.franz.com)
> I'm interested in integration with C routines (and Xlib) where possible,
> and at least passable exectution speed/size. Thanks.
C routines for X? Use CLX!
Mike McDonald
·······@mikemac.com
·······@mikemac.com (Mike McDonald) writes:
> In article <······················@news.giganews.com>,
> "Dan Higdon" <····@charybdis.com> writes:
> > Is GCL (Gnu Common Lisp, was Kyoto CL, I think) a decent
> > CL implementation? I'm just getting Linux going on my system,
> > and I want a decent CL development system, preferably without
> > shelling out cash for a professional system. :-)
>
> In my opinion, NO! Get CMUCL from cons.org for a PD
> version or get Franz's ACL for Linux from them for
> free. (www.franz.com)
CLISP is another decent choice. Not quite ANSI, but pretty close.
Reasonably small too.
>
> > I'm interested in integration with C routines (and Xlib) where possible,
> > and at least passable exectution speed/size. Thanks.
>
> C routines for X? Use CLX!
>
Indeed. Although I understand some did a C interface to Xlib for
CLISP. 3 times faster than CLX. (A bit hazy. This was quite a while
ago.)
For interfacing to C, CMUCL is probably the easiest. CLISP and GCL
can also, but perhaps not quite as easy.
Ray
Raymond Toy <···@rtp.ericsson.se> writes:
> For interfacing to C, CMUCL is probably the easiest. CLISP and GCL
> can also, but perhaps not quite as easy.
It depends on what you're doing. Last year, I wrote a basic
HTTP server in Common Lisp. Some C was also needed. It was
far easier to do this in GCL than in, say, Lucid or Allegro.
I don't think CMU CL would be any better, though I didn't
look into it in detail. And CMU CL is pretty huge.
-- jeff
Jeff Dalton <····@gairsay.aiai.ed.ac.uk> writes:
> Raymond Toy <···@rtp.ericsson.se> writes:
>
> > For interfacing to C, CMUCL is probably the easiest. CLISP and GCL
> > can also, but perhaps not quite as easy.
>
> It depends on what you're doing. Last year, I wrote a basic
> HTTP server in Common Lisp. Some C was also needed. It was
> far easier to do this in GCL than in, say, Lucid or Allegro.
> I don't think CMU CL would be any better, though I didn't
> look into it in detail.
Can't say anything about Lucid or Allegro, but the last time I tried
interfacing C with GCL, it was fairly hard, especially because of the
lack of documentation. Interfacing C with CMUCL is usually quite easy
and basically consists of just slightly modifying the C function
prototype into the appropriate Lisp style.
> And CMU CL is pretty huge.
Yes, the major disadvantage of CMUCL.
Ray
Raymond Toy <···@rtp.ericsson.se> writes:
> Jeff Dalton <····@gairsay.aiai.ed.ac.uk> writes:
> > Raymond Toy <···@rtp.ericsson.se> writes:
> > > For interfacing to C, CMUCL is probably the easiest. CLISP and GCL
> > > can also, but perhaps not quite as easy.
> > It depends on what you're doing. Last year, I wrote a basic
> > HTTP server in Common Lisp. Some C was also needed. It was
> > far easier to do this in GCL than in, say, Lucid or Allegro.
> > I don't think CMU CL would be any better, though I didn't
> > look into it in detail.
> Can't say anything about Lucid or Allegro, but the last time I tried
> interfacing C with GCL, it was fairly hard, especially because of the
> lack of documentation.
It depends on what you want to do. If you have some existing,
compiled, C code in .o files, or in libraries, then GCL may
not be such a good choice. (I haven't tried it for that kind
of thing for a long time.)
But if I just want some C procedure (e.g. to do a socket operation)
that I can call, then I find it much easier to do this in GCL than
in other Lisps. (And this remains so when the C code will call
Lisp.) I can write the code and be done before I've even figured
out what tell Allegro or Lucid about the C types involved.
There's documentation.
> Interfacing C with CMUCL is usually quite easy
> and basically consists of just slightly modifying the C function
> prototype into the appropriate Lisp style.
I should look again at CMU CL, especially now that there's a ?86
port.
-- jeff
·······@mikemac.com (Mike McDonald) writes:
> In article <······················@news.giganews.com>,
> "Dan Higdon" <····@charybdis.com> writes:
> > Is GCL (Gnu Common Lisp, was Kyoto CL, I think) a decent
> > CL implementation? I'm just getting Linux going on my system,
> > and I want a decent CL development system, preferably without
> > shelling out cash for a professional system. :-)
>
> In my opinion, NO! Get CMUCL from cons.org for a PD
> version or get Franz's ACL for Linux from them for
> free. (www.franz.com)
GCL is fine for many purposes. I have used it (in various forms --
it's derived from KCL/AKCL) since 1985, and I have had many other
CLs that I could use. (At one point, there were 12.)
I don't always use GCL, and I'm not claiming it's the best CL;
but it's fine for many purposes.
-- jeff
Sam Steingold <···@usa.net> writes:
> It doesn't look like GCL is being developed any more.
> I had hard time compiling it under linux, and has since then abandoned
> it in favor of clisp and acl.
I always feel that, if necessary, I can port GCL myself, especially
since I've done that a couple of times (for KCL) already.
Is clisp compiled to native code these days? (My memory is that
it wasn't.)
-- jeff